Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 code named "Snow Leopard" - report

[AppleInsider]

Apple is indeed well into the development of Mac OS X 10.6, which the company has internally code-named "Snow Leopard," according to ArsTechnica.

Citing a person familiar with the situation, the technology website confirms several details of the next major Mac OS X upgrade first reported on Tuesday, including a scheduled release as soon as Macworld 2009 this coming January, and that it will not introduce any major new features.

Instead, Snow Leopard is said to focus heavily on performance optimization and security, a move that will in all likelihood widen the gap between Mac OS X and Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system in those areas.

"Things like the MacBook Air, iPhone, iPod touch, and other mysterious devices that have yet to be announced need better performance for better battery life, and that's definitely something Apple wants to excel at in the years to come," wrote Ars' Jacqui Cheng.

Unconfirmed is whether the software will be shown off or discussed at the company's annual developers conference next week. However, AppleInsider in recent weeks has been told to expect discussion of "another big cat" at the event.

Also unconfirmed, but somewhat likely, is that Apple will completely wrap Snow Leopard in its Cocoa application programming interface (API) set, meaning that applications written via the company's legacy Carbon API will fail to run on the new system.



Adding corroboration to an AppleInsider report published last September, Ars adds that Mac OS X 10.6 is expected to support only Intel-based Macs, leaving owners of PowerPC-based systems of yesteryear out in the cold.

Update: Ars updates its report saying: "There may be some disagreement here as to what exactly "Cocoa-only" means, so take that into account when thinking about this. For example, Apple may only axe Carbon UI stuff."

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Akac]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Also unconfirmed, but somewhat likely, is that Apple will completely wrap Snow Leopard in its Cocoa application programming interface (API) set, meaning that applications written via the company's legacy Carbon API will fail to run on the new system.

This part makes no sense. So no Photoshop? No Final Cut Pro? No Microsoft Office? I really really doubt that.

[ncee]

Originally Posted by Akac

This part makes no sense. So no Photoshop? No Final Cut Pro? No Microsoft Office? I really really doubt that.

Unless they are going to come out with there own versions of PS, Office, and re-write Final Cut Pro?

Skip

PS But I agree with you, this makes no sense.

[Messiah]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Instead, Snow Leopard is said to focus heavily on performance optimization and security

That's the best thing I've heard in years.

It's about time that Apple realised that it has to polish and optimise the Mac OS, rather than adding layers of useless eye-candy.

If this is indeed true, I'll be at the front of the line come 10.6's release...

[Captain Jack]

Snow Leopard is a good name, sounds like Leopard's cool cousin, and Leopard is cool to begin with.

As someone who came from XP/Vista the release timetables of Mac OS's take some getting used to, back on the PC it was a long time between drinks (like 5 years between XP - Vista), so when Apple say Snow Leopard could be here in January I can't help but think that Leopard just came out yesterday Still, great stuff.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by Akac

This part makes no sense. So no Photoshop? No Final Cut Pro? No Microsoft Office? I really really doubt that.

Hey get VMWare and run 10.5 in a virtual machine so you can run those old crappy Carbon apps.



I still don't 'get' this rumor.

[hobBIT]

Could we finally get Resolution Independence?
Please!

It's been under the hood since OS X 10.4! But it never saw the light of day.
Yet it would be such a cool feature which could clearly distinguish OSX hardware from Windows hardware.

Steve, you reading this?
Please!

[Zandros]

Originally Posted by Messiah

It's about time that Apple realised that it has to polish and optimise the Mac OS, rather than adding layers of useless eye-candy.

Useless eye candy? I thought that was the domain of Windows Vista, care to show me where it is in Leopard? (Except the shift slow motion)

Edit: Ah, menu bar too, I have mine set to solid, so I did not think of it.

/Adrian

[hypoluxa]

Sounds good to me... I hope they make the OS as fast and snappy as possible, and get rid of any usless glut. I may wait a few more years before I upgrade my last gen G5, so Im in no hurry. If I do get another Mac it will be a handy little MacBook. Ill leave any heavy lifting for my desktop.

[Joe_the_dragon]

who will pay $129 for no major new features and alot of now working older apps?

and no ppc or 32bit x86??

Apple better have a $800 - $2100 desktop system like they did back in the PPC days and the imacs screen is not good for photo work as well. The mini is over priced and weak.

also apple has good technology that makes Windows' 32/64bit support look bad so why dump it after one OS release?

education is also still a big user of PPC.

[fabsgwu]

I want an apple sub-notebook (lower cost, hopefully) like the MSI Wind. Get on the Atom bandwagon, Apple!!!

[Bageljoey]

Originally Posted by Messiah

That's the best thing I've heard in years.

It's about time that Apple realised that it has to polish and optimise the Mac OS, rather than adding layers of useless eye-candy.

If this is indeed true, I'll be at the front of the line come 10.6's release...

Yeah, except that it is hard to get people to shell out $99 for "everything is a little better."
Most people think that is what the point releases are for.

Eye-candy and new features are what people (in general) pay for...

[tacojohn]

I'm only on the Carbon dropping bandwagon if–

1. Apple releases a competitor to Photoshop and Illustrator

or

2. Adobe Updates CS4 to Cocoa

I don't care about MS Office, I rarely use it.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by Joe_the_dragon

who will pay $129 for no major new features and alot of now working older apps?

and no ppc or 32bit x86??

Apple better have a $800 - $2100 desktop system like they did back in the PPC days and the imacs screen is not good for photo work as well. The mini is over priced and weak.

also apple has good technology that makes Windows' 32/64bit support look bad so why dump it after one OS release?

education is also still a big user of PPC.

We don't know the pricing Joe and if we're talking about January 09 then chances are we have a mini refresh. It's WELL known that you think the mini is pathetic but give it some time.

Apple could certainly do a $69 update to 10.6 and give us the polish and a bit of forward movement that simply would be inappropriate for Leopard.

[astrosmash]

Man, there is a lot of stupid speculation going on. Snow Leopard won't run Carbon apps? Give me a break.

This kind of uneducated speculation is a hilarious waste of time.

Leopard itself brought massive additions and improvements to both the Cocoa and Carbon frameworks. There are things you simply cannot do in Cocoa, which is why most applications make use of both Cocoa and Carbon frameworks. If Carbon isn't available in 10.6 most Cocoa application won't run.

[Jootec from Mars]

If this rumour turns out to be true. Surely the update must be free. Who is going to pay to update when all you are getting is better performance and better security. The update is even less interesting than the update from XP to Vista. Most people will wait until 10.7.

[tshort]

There are still a number of Apple supplied applications in OS X that use Carbon. It could be that those applications and utilities will be rewritten to use Cocoa. Carbon needs to be around for a while for backwards compatibility.

Although, Apple is more like to kill backwards compatibility than Microsoft.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by hobBIT

Could we finally get Resolution Independence?
Please!

It's been under the hood since OS X 10.4! But it never saw the light of day.
Yet it would be such a cool feature which could clearly distinguish OSX hardware from Windows hardware.

Steve, you reading this?
Please!

You can enable it in 10.5 (without installing developer tools) but there are some things that just don't look right. There is stilla lot of work that needs to be done to fix it.

You can check it out by putting the command below into Terminal in Leopard. Exchange the trailing x for any value (up to 3, I think), where one is the default norm. Then log out and then back in to see the changes.

defaults write -g AppleDisplayScaleFactor x

[g3pro]

This is retarded. And most likely a scam by Apple to force adoption of Intel hardware on PowerPC users. First you control the software, then you prevent developers from developing for legacy operating systems. The squeeze is coming.

How unfortunate. This Quad G5 is more than capable of lasting through 2012, but Apple wants to give me the shaft. Fuck them.

[Booga]

Originally Posted by hobBIT

Could we finally get Resolution Independence?
Please!

It's been under the hood since OS X 10.4! But it never saw the light of day.
Yet it would be such a cool feature which could clearly distinguish OSX hardware from Windows hardware.

Steve, you reading this?
Please!

It's going to take a lot of selling to get customers to buy into a feature that promises to look worse and take a lot more processing power at the same time. I honestly don't understand the hankering for this feature. Unless you have 200dpi displays or like to look at things reeeeally up close it doesn't buy you anything, and just makes stuff less than pixel-perfect.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

We don't know the pricing Joe and if we're talking about January 09 then chances are we have a mini refresh. It's WELL known that you think the mini is pathetic but give it some time.

Apple could certainly do a $69 update to 10.6 and give us the polish and a bit of forward movement that simply would be inappropriate for Leopard.

Murch, making Leopard more secure and stable is called a 'point' update. Not a full upgrade.

And if it breaks all the old carbon apps, I don't know why anyone would upgrade. Snow Leopard would make Vista look good.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a preview of 10.6, but I think It'll be a bit different than what is being said at Ars and TUAW. Either you get some major new 'killer' features at the expense of carbon compatibility(and PPC compatibility for that matter). Or you get good backwards compatibility with the addition of few or no new features.

[icfireball]

Originally Posted by g3pro

This is retarded. And most likely a scam by Apple to force adoption of Intel hardware on PowerPC users. First you control the software, then you prevent developers from developing for legacy operating systems. The squeeze is coming.

How unfortunate. This Quad G5 is more than capable of lasting through 2012, but Apple wants to give me the shaft. Fuck them.

You're getting irate over a RUMOUR! Nothing about that report is confirmed and much of it could be inaccurate.

[Booga]

Originally Posted by astrosmash

Man, there is a lot of stupid speculation going on. Snow Leopard won't run Carbon apps? Give me a break.

This kind of uneducated speculation is a hilarious waste of time.

Leopard itself brought massive additions and improvements to both the Cocoa and Carbon frameworks. There are things you simply cannot do in Cocoa, which is why most applications make use of both Cocoa and Carbon frameworks. If Carbon isn't available in 10.6 most Cocoa application won't run.

Yeah, this rumor smacks of someone who doesn't really understand things passing on information third-hand. What I could see is making Cocoa 100% feature-complete without any need for Carbon in 10.6. Or even declaring that Carbon is at end-of-life and won't get any new features (although they wrote that one on the wall with the lack of 64-bit support in 10.5.)

I just wish people would stop claiming that Carbon was always intended to be a stop-gap measure. Apple made it very clear that Carbon and Cocoa were equal peers back in the 10.0 and 10.1 days. Yes, things have changed since then now that Apple has the leverage to force developers to bend to their will like it or not, but it really is a relatively new development.

[biggsjm]

Originally Posted by Akac

This part makes no sense. So no Photoshop? No Final Cut Pro? No Microsoft Office? I really really doubt that.

The “pure Cocoa” stuff is about additional Cocoa wrappers for APIs that currently are only available in Carbon (and/or at the BSD level) — more stuff that developers can do using Objective-C APIs. It is not about dropping Carbon from the OS, which would make no sense. It’s a message for developers, not a description of Snow Leopard.

[PG4G]

Adobe has already stated that CS4 will be cocoa, not carbon.
They note this as they wanted to get on the 64bit bandwagon, but they couldn't because Apple decided, around 2 years ago, to drop their effort of trying to port Carbon to 64 bit.

This forced CS3 to stay only carbon.
CS4 was stated to be moved to Cocoa.

MS Office? I don't want it is Apple can find a way to convince me that iWork can stand up against it.

I love iWork, but does Pages save in .doc or .docx files? If so, I am all for it!

[hypoluxa]

Originally Posted by g3pro

This is retarded. And most likely a scam by Apple to force adoption of Intel hardware on PowerPC users. First you control the software, then you prevent developers from developing for legacy operating systems. The squeeze is coming.

How unfortunate. This Quad G5 is more than capable of lasting through 2012, but Apple wants to give me the shaft. Fuck them.

No, I highly doubt it. Its just the nature of the beast of computer tech. It takes a lot of time & money to develop software that is functional and stable etc on particular HW... dropping some old tech is just one way Apple can cut its expenses I bet.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by g3pro

This is retarded. And most likely a scam by Apple to force adoption of Intel hardware on PowerPC users. First you control the software, then you prevent developers from developing for legacy operating systems. The squeeze is coming.

How unfortunate. This Quad G5 is more than capable of lasting through 2012, but Apple wants to give me the shaft. Fuck them.

I agree with you but I can also see Apple's viewpoint which is

"We're spending considerable resources to support a platform that should eventually diminish with each new refresh"

I thought creating UB apps would be easy but considering the growing amount of apps I see coming that are Intel only I think the facts are adding PPC support is more difficult and some developers are focsing on people with more recent Macs. It's not necessarily right or wrong but it is what it is.

[esqwuared]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Apple is indeed well into the development of Mac OS X 10.6, which the company has internally code-named "Snow Leopard," according to ArsTechnica.

Citing a person familiar with the situation, the technology website confirms several details of the next major Mac OS X upgrade first reported on Tuesday, including a scheduled release as soon as Macworld 2009 this coming January, and that it will not introduce any major new features.

...

Also unconfirmed, but somewhat likely, is that Apple will completely wrap Snow Leopard in its Cocoa application programming interface (API) set, meaning that applications written via the company's legacy Carbon API will fail to run on the new system.

Originally Posted by Akac

This part makes no sense. So no Photoshop? No Final Cut Pro? No Microsoft Office? I really really doubt that.

It seems to me like a good move on their part. The name Snow Leopard reads like a complement to the current Leopard release, rather than a Brand New Thing, which is surely no mistake. I'd bet that the goal is to come out with a much improved (in security and performance) version of Leopard that's nothing new in terms of feature set in a comparably short time frame. Some will want to spend the money to upgrade, but I think the whole point is that it's not really expected. Apple will be working on 10.7, another couple years off, which will build on the speed and security of 10.6 and again offer new consumer oriented features.

In the meantime, Apple will take advantage of this interim major release to make some hard breaks (namely, dropping PPC support). Think how angry some would get if a shiny new cat with lots of new features required them to update their not-so-old system. And, while they're at it, they can finally transition fully to Cocoa and drive third parties to follow along, just as they did with the Intel transition, so that by the next big release (10.7) everything runs like a dream. I seriously doubt that Apple would make such a move without first conferring with the folks at places such as Adobe about the direction.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by g3pro

This is retarded. And most likely a scam by Apple to force adoption of Intel hardware on PowerPC users. First you control the software, then you prevent developers from developing for legacy operating systems. The squeeze is coming.

How unfortunate. This Quad G5 is more than capable of lasting through 2012, but Apple wants to give me the shaft. Fuck them.

You may want to wait for the rumor to be substantiated before you light the torches, grab your pitch forces and summon the town folk.

The only way I can see this as happening is if Apple creates a 2nd OS—like Snow Leopard—that is for NEW 64-bit Intel Macs that is built alongside the normal upgrade path as their other systems. This way, new Macs, which are all 64-bit and Intel can benefit from the streamlined OS development that comes from not having to support 4 different architectures.

If this is done with HW authentication chips onboard then in 4-5 years Apple can then move everything to 64-bit Intel OS that is streamlined, with less R&D needed as it only needs to support one architecture and will make it harder for OSx86 Project developers.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Booga

Yeah, this rumor smacks of someone who doesn't really understand things passing on information third-hand. What I could see is making Cocoa 100% feature-complete without any need for Carbon in 10.6. Or even declaring that Carbon is at end-of-life and won't get any new features (although they wrote that one on the wall with the lack of 64-bit support in 10.5.)

Given that Carbon has *zero* sessions at WWDC, this is a shoe-in.

Given that Carbon had *one* session at last year's WWDC (Transitioning Carbon code to Cocoa), this was obvious a year ago.

I just wish people would stop claiming that Carbon was always intended to be a stop-gap measure. Apple made it very clear that Carbon and Cocoa were equal peers back in the 10.0 and 10.1 days. Yes, things have changed since then now that Apple has the leverage to force developers to bend to their will like it or not, but it really is a relatively new development.

Uh, no, no it's not. I was at WWDC when Carbon was unveiled, and the message was unified, clear, and distinct: Carbon was for *legacy apps only*. Cocoa was for *all new code*. It was very clear, very loud, and 100% consistent from every Apple engineer.

The parity message came about only because the legacy developers *KEPT WHINING*, and Apple threw them *another* bone by giving lip service to the idea that Carbon was a full peer.

That bone is done. Time to move on. It's been a decade. Anyone who hasn't gotten the message by now needs to just step aside. (Looking at you, Adobe...)

My prediction:

10.6: Carbon code will run, Carbon APIs officially deprecated, Carbon headers possibly even removed. ie, DON'T WRITE TO THIS API YOU BONEHEADS!!!

10.7/8: Carbon libraries removed, Carbon finally dies fer realz.

[admactanium]

Originally Posted by g3pro

This is retarded. And most likely a scam by Apple to force adoption of Intel hardware on PowerPC users. First you control the software, then you prevent developers from developing for legacy operating systems. The squeeze is coming.

How unfortunate. This Quad G5 is more than capable of lasting through 2012, but Apple wants to give me the shaft. Fuck them.

i doubt your cooling system on your quad g5 will last that long though. of the 3 g5 towers i know of, including my own quad, all of them have had a failure of the cooling system. they have all also been replaced with mac pros by apple. i have a 2.8 8-core machine right now as my replacement.

[icfireball]

Originally Posted by PG4G

Adobe has already stated that CS4 will be cocoa, not carbon.
They note this as they wanted to get on the 64bit bandwagon, but they couldn't because Apple decided, around 2 years ago, to drop their effort of trying to port Carbon to 64 bit.

This forced CS3 to stay only carbon.
CS4 was stated to be moved to Cocoa.

MS Office? I don't want it is Apple can find a way to convince me that iWork can stand up against it.

I love iWork, but does Pages save in .doc or .docx files? If so, I am all for it!

iWork saves to it's own proprietary format but can export and import .doc AND .docx files with great accuracy.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by backtomac

Murch, making Leopard more secure and stable is called a 'point' update. Not a full upgrade.

And if it breaks all the old carbon apps, I don't know why anyone would upgrade. Snow Leopard would make Vista look good.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a preview of 10.6, but I think It'll be a bit different than what is being said at Ars and TUAW. Either you get some major new 'killer' features at the expense of carbon compatibility(and PPC compatibility for that matter). Or you get good backwards compatibility with the addition of few or no new features.

I don't believe that 10.6 will be about just security and stability.

I see nothing wrong with Apple making substantive updates to various parts of
the OS. iCal could certainly use a UI makeover. I'd like Mail to improve in stability and featureset. Toss in Rez Ind and ZFS Read/Write support and polish the new API and you've got a worthy $70-80 upgrade for recent model Mac. PPC people could easily live on Leopard for another 16 months.

Doesn't anyone wonder why there are 19 TBA sessions for WWDC? THere's already alot of iPhone coverage listed. Methinks 10.6 and Apple's roadmap for Carbon/Cocoa, 32bit/64bit and PPC/Intel will be divulged.

[amac4me]

If true that means we'll never see a Powerbook G5

On a more serious note, it only makes sense for Apple to drop PowerPC support on Mac OS X eventually. The PowerPC Mac era died the day the transition to Intel was announced (Summer 2005). We're now 2.5 years into the Intel Mac era (since the MacBook Pro announcement at MacWorld 2006) so the timetable of dropping PowerPC support on the "next" version of the operating system makes sense to me.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by biggsjm

The “pure Cocoa” stuff is about additional Cocoa wrappers for APIs that currently are only available in Carbon (and/or at the BSD level) — more stuff that developers can do using Objective-C APIs. It is not about dropping Carbon from the OS, which would make no sense. It’s a message for developers, not a description of Snow Leopard.

Hey, that looks familiar - http://daringfireball.net/linked/200...-04-pure_cocoa

[hobBIT]

Originally Posted by Booga

I honestly don't understand the hankering for this feature. Unless you have 200dpi displays

That is exactly the point. There is no need for Resolution Independence with today's boring MacBook / MacBook Pro screen resolutions.

However, Windows notebooks had 1920x1200 resolutions on 15" displays for years. Why not Macs?

Because of people complaining they can't read the tiny text. (Well, then offer it as a built-to-order option, that's my view! But Apple refuses...)
Anyhoo, give me a 13" BluRay notebook with true 1080HD resolution to watch BluRay DVDs on - and give me Resolution Independence so people won't complain about the tiny pixels - by getting super crisp text and UI elements in a virtual 1280x720 resolution (or whatever res you fancy).
Once you've seen text on a 300dpi screen - as sharp as on printouts - you don't want to go back!

This could be a feature that separates Apple hardware from off-the-mill Windows PCs: complete and matching support between 200-300dpi screens and the OS. Super-crisp text and UI elements.

It's the User Interface! And if it looks much crisper and nicer than on any other hardware - that can be a big seller!
This could be the extra eye candy people would be missing in the otherwise new-feature-less OS X 10.6 release.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by PG4G

Adobe has already stated that CS4 will be cocoa, not carbon.
They note this as they wanted to get on the 64bit bandwagon, but they couldn't because Apple decided, around 2 years ago, to drop their effort of trying to port Carbon to 64 bit.

This forced CS3 to stay only carbon.
CS4 was stated to be moved to Cocoa.

Where did they state this?

The last statement they made was that Windows CS4 was going 64bit but Mac CS4 was remaining 32bit.

Originally Posted by PG4G

MS Office? I don't want it is Apple can find a way to convince me that iWork can stand up against it.

I love iWork, but does Pages save in .doc or .docx files? If so, I am all for it!

For most uses I have for a WP and a spreadsheet, Pages and Numbers are good enough. The both save in .doc(x) and .xls but most of the time I export to PDF anyway so that the end user doesn't need to have Word to read my documents.

iWork's file formats are XML based btw.

[djames42]

Originally Posted by PG4G

MS Office? I don't want it is Apple can find a way to convince me that iWork can stand up against it.

I love iWork, but does Pages save in .doc or .docx files? If so, I am all for it!

I use MS Office at work, but mostly for Exchange server support and the occasional Word/Excel feature that's missing in iWork (forms, auto-filters). On my personal MacBook Pro, I have iWork '08 installed and not MS Office. I don't miss it at all.

...and yes, iWork can import as well as export .doc[x], .xls[x] and .ppt files. Its support for PowerPoint files is somewhat marginal in my experience, but I have little use for those anyway, and have virtually no complaints with its Word and Excel support.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Booga

It's going to take a lot of selling to get customers to buy into a feature that promises to look worse and take a lot more processing power at the same time. I honestly don't understand the hankering for this feature. Unless you have 200dpi displays or like to look at things reeeeally up close it doesn't buy you anything, and just makes stuff less than pixel-perfect.

I think you're way overplaying your case, if there is much truth to it at all. It doesn't require 200ppi displays, and as far as I've seen, most stuff will still look pixel-perfect because all the UI elements are available with at a lot of different sizes. Processing power is irrelevant, it's very most likely GPU scaling if there is any scaling, vs. just substituting the appropriate size graphical elements.

Personally, there are times I'd like to be able to sit farther away from my screen, and res independence would help.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I don't believe that 10.6 will be about just security and stability.

I see nothing wrong with Apple making substantive updates to various parts of
the OS. iCal could certainly use a UI makeover. I'd like Mail to improve in stability and featureset. Toss in Rez Ind and ZFS Read/Write support and polish the new API and you've got a worthy $70-80 upgrade for recent model Mac. PPC people could easily live on Leopard for another 16 months.

Doesn't anyone wonder why there are 19 TBA sessions for WWDC? THere's already alot of iPhone coverage listed. Methinks 10.6 and Apple's roadmap for Carbon/Cocoa, 32bit/64bit and PPC/Intel will be divulged.

Well answer me this if you can. I don't have the answer but perhaps others do.

Which Apple apps are 64 bit Cocoa apps? Is Apple ready to eat its own cooking here, provided the rumor IS accurate?